THE worth of a country’s membership to the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC) outweighs the cost in contributions that each country must make.

This is the word of Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Christopher Sinckler. The Minister gave the keynote address during the opening ceremony of CCLEC 33rd Annual Conference, held yesterday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.
Sinckler said that if one were to measure the cost of CCLEC membership versus the benefits derived from it, it becomes clear that the latter outweighs the former.

“In terms of a cost/benefit analysis, it can be easily demonstrated that the benefits of CCLEC membership, with the ability to access and utilise a share of over US$2 million, far outweigh the annual contributions by members,” Sinckler noted.

THE Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Curacao.

The signing took place yesterday at the CCLEC 33rd Annual Conference held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre yesterday. Master of Ceremonies for the event, Head of Human Resources of the Barbados Customs, David Stuart, explained that Curacao was required to sign the MOU yesterday because as of January 1 of this year, the political structure of the Netherlands Antilles has changed. Curacao, as an independent state of the Kingdom of the Netherlands Antilles, had to sign on to the MOU separately.

“The Netherlands Antilles signed the CCLEC Memorandum of Understanding in 1989 when it consisted of five islands, namely, Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius. However, on the 1st of January 2011 the political structure of Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist as one. The Kingdom of the Netherlands Antilles now consists of four independent states, namely, the Netherlands, Curacao, Aruba and St. Maarten. Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius are now special municipalities of the Netherlands,” Stuart explained.

The Customs Management Program commenced on Monday 23 August 2010 with overwhelming support from the majority of regional governments.  During the past two months the Caribbean Customs Law Enforcement Council (CCLEC) has engaged in a road show throughout the region to promote the long awaited program which is designed to enhance the level of professionalism and effectiveness within the Customs services of the region.

The development of the CMP is a major milestone for the region.  The timeliness of such a program for Customs could not be more appropriate in light of the implementation of new trade agreements.  A recent study to assess the specific needs of CARIFORUM countries implementing their Customs and trade facilitation commitments in the  CARIFORUM - European Community Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) concluded that

“there is a very wide divergence in the levels of training given to Customs officers, ranging from no formal training to 15 months of formal training. This clearly has an impact on the efficiency of Customs. Any modernization programme needs to address training, as the impact of new IT systems will be lessened if Customs officers are not trained to a high standard in all customs functions and procedures based on international best practices”

 From left -right Christopher De. Riggs - Chairman, GDTAC Sterring Committee, Hon. V. Nazim Burke - Min. of Fin., Carlyle Felix - COC

On Wednesday June 30^th Grenada launched the ASYCUDA World project. The implementation of ASYCUDA World in Grenada is a sub-project of the Grenada Technical Assistance Credit Project (GDTAC) which is jointly funded by the International Development Association (IDA) and the European Union (EU).  The GDTAC which started in 2009 is aimed at improving the environment for private sector led growth, through the modernization of key public sector institutions (namely Grenada Bureau of Standards, the Inland Revenue Division, the Grenada Industrial Development Corporation and the Customs & Excise Division) and the implementation of an export strategy.

ASYCUDA World will allow Customs and the private sector to conduct most transactions, from Customs Declarations to Cargo Manifest and Transit documents via the internet.  This will improve the ease of doing business with the Division and reduce the time taken to clear goods.

The installation and implementation is expected to be completed within 18-24 months.